Tonight (well, last night technically) I went to Charles's 24th birthday party at the Red Sky Bar on 29th Street - it was ridiculously packed, full of frat and sorority graduates who were just too cleancut, bleached, and made up for my comfort level. I know some people disapprove of my disapproval of people like that, but I simply don't enjoy their company. Especially when I wait in line for the bathroom while three girls share a stall and I see camera flashes go off. Why are you taking pictures IN THE BATHROOM?!

Anyway I had been there for about 10 minutes and was leaning against the bar talking to my brother (who is visiting this weekend) when a tall white male approached me. "I like long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and - not sex, but the cuddling afterward." After registering that he was actually saying this with some sort of twisted intention of picking me up, I responded, "Those are all pretty typical." "I read it in Playboy," he said. "I actually read it... the pictures are just a bonus. Those Playmates can really write!"

I didn't even have a witty response, the line was so lame.

So then he disappeared for a while, my roommates showed up, we had a couple more drinks and I went outside for a few minutes... and he followed me out. He was smoking pot out of a cigarette filter, offered me some (I declined), telling me that smoking up makes you horny. We had some lame conversation, during which I pretty much decided that he was kind of a tool and not particularly funny or interesting (he's a paralegal... snore), then he walked me back in and as I stopped to talk to Charles he whispered "Sweet dreams" in my ear and slipped away.

What?! Is that what most 20-somethings are like these days? Because if that's the case, I am certainly not missing out. Which only frustrates me further that the people I have found whom I think are worth my time, don't necessarily reciprocate the same enthusiasm.

I think what is most perplexing about my current removed emotional state is that I can't write about it, because once I start to think about it in terms of writing, it becomes that much more important to me, that much more romantic, and that much more dramatic. And I don't want things to be dramatic anymore. But how else can I channel everything but through my writing?

Do you understand that now?